


The Handmaiden

by LadyBergamot



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Edelthea, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, might become sexually explicit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyBergamot/pseuds/LadyBergamot
Summary: Talented songstress and thief, Dorothea Arnault is looking to rise above the squalor of the streets. When a rich nobleman offers her a role in a big heist - to con the rich and naive Edelgard von Hresvelg out of her fortune as her new handmaiden - she enters into a world far beyond her wildest dreams. A tale of seduction, deceit, and betrayal: "the Handmaiden" is inspired by the 2016 film of the same name (dir. Park Chan-wook).
Relationships: Dorothea Arnault & Edelgard von Hresvelg, Dorothea Arnault/Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 23
Kudos: 56





	1. Part 1: Dorothea Arnault

**Author's Note:**

> For clarification, this story sticks with the lore and world of Fire Emblem: Three Houses (i.e. the continent is still Fodlan, they're in the Empire of Adrestia, and crests still exist). However, instead of the plot that we get in the game, this AU follows a version where Edelgard never goes to school, and Dorothea never had a big break with opera.

Dorothea heard the distant echoes of footfall before anything else. As she carried her battered suitcase in, she could _feel_ \- even in the dark, the vastness of the hall, ringing with the clobbering ruckus of her borrowed shoes.

“This is the main wing,” announced the housekeeper, unabashed at how her voice seemed to clamor in the late hour. Despite the vibrant sheen of her clementine-colored hair, Dorothea could discern in the older woman’s cheeks the faint lines of age, smoothed under copious amounts of powder. “You will spend most of your days attending to the Lady here.”

Still, something about the Housekeeper’s kept appearance belied an intractable sort of authority - one that would brook no idle exercises in curiosity. Dorothea merely kept her head low and bit down on her lip, following after her new employer in silent obedience.

They stopped by a set of stairs where the housekeeper,Cornelia, rummaged the pockets of her petticoat for a tinderbox. Dorothea could hear the crackle of sharp stone as a blinding spark pierced through the lightless hall. A few more strikes, and soon Cornelia held a lit lamp which bathed her callous demeanor in a jarringly warm glow. “Follow me,” she commanded, turning to the fledgling chambermaid.

Dorothea bowed her head again. “Yes, Lady Cornelia.” She leaned in and practiced her curtsy, taking care to hide her hands behind the folds of her dress.

The deferent performance seemed to satisfy Cornelia, who bore the faint trace of a smile as she resumed her tour of the house. The two women proceeded without further ado, ascending the lavishly lacquered stair case in the dark. The house itself seemed to be a maze of its own. Winding corners, endless stairs, and countless paintings of the nobility filled Dorothea’s unexpectedly long sojourn through the manor.

Dorothea kept her focus on the shadows that played with the wax and wane of Cornelia’s lantern, catching glimpses of paintings and marble busts along the velvet-draped walls. As they turned a corner into yet another vast hallway, she couldn’t help but spot the corners of an especially large portrait. The pigments seemed to dance with the flickering of the lantern, boasting the richness of the oils that gave life to the woman frozen in their frame.

“Who is she?” Dorothea blurted out.

Her hand shot up to cover her mouth, blushing through her unexpected breach in etiquette. Somehow, her words seemed to shake the manse at its very core. Even Housekeeper Cornelia craned her neck in surprise and raised an irked brow at the new servant’s rather pert question.

Cornelia, for her part, turned wordlessly to the painting, lifting the lantern up to reveal the contours of its subject.

“ _That_ ,” Cornelia began with barely concealed disdain, “is the Lady herself: Lady Edelgard von Hresvelg.”

Dorothea paused to the study the portrait with greater scrutiny: a silver-haired woman with lilac eyes, dressed in a rich muslin gown of crimson. Dorothea couldn’t help but admire the milky pallor of the subject’s shoulders, bare from the new vogue of off-shoulder petticoats. She even marveled at the rather minute details of the painting, in which loose silver tresses cascaded from the otherwise tidy bun of the subject’s hair, gently capering over the lithe lines of her neck. And on her gloved fingers, radiant with the pale blue satin fabric, wrapped countless jewels and rings - the wealth of which the new chambermaid had never before seen.

“You’ll meet her soon enough,” Cornelia suddenly said, snapping Dorothea out of her trance. “Come quickly.” The older woman quickened her pace down the hall, almost leaving behind Dorothea. “The handmaiden is responsible for waking the young lady and readying her for her-… _busy_ day. You cannot afford to idle.”

The younger woman lowered her head once more and managed a subdued, “yes milady” before quickly following suit.

* * *

“This is your room.”

Cornelia stepped aside to let Dorothea into the chamber - a meager abode to say the least. It was the size of a diminutive hovel, the ceiling barely reaching past Dorothea’s stature. The walls were naked of the tapestry and oak panels that lavished the more affluent surroundings outside, boasting in their stead a sickly coating of yellow paint. A small circular window graced the far side of the room, allowing a sliver of moonlight into the dark and dingy surroundings. Next to the wall, a small mattress laid atop a wiry, rusted-over bed frame. Dorothea could practically _hear_ the imminent squeaking of its battered springs.

“The young Lady’s room is next door. Be up at sunrise,” Cornelia commanded as she turned to close the door. She didn’t even wait for a response - much less bid her a good night - before the door callously shut on Dorothea.

Left alone, she could only inch forward and let her suitcase fall with a thud on the washed-out floorboards. The weight of it caused a plume of previously undisturbed dust, prompting the young girl to erupt to stifle a fit of coughing.

 _‘Well Thea…’_ she thought to herself as she approached her new bed. She bounced down on the mattress, relishing in the screech of its springs as she tussled violently into the musty-smelling sheets. _‘This is your life now.’_

Dorothea hovered her legs over the edge of the bed, flailing her feet until she could kick off the leather boots her patron had loaned her. She watched as the moonlight dimly shone on the steel-studded point of the shoes, biting down her lip while struggling through her task.

_“What are you doing here?”_

_“I’m in need of a girl.”_

Words of recent memory echoed in the silence of her head, filling the gaps in her thought as she quickly undressed from her travelers’ clothes. The snap of the buttons as she unlaced were almost deafening compared to the muted solitude of her new life, but it could hardly compete with the remembered conversations playing out in their head, reminding her of what she had set out to do.

 _“Well, have your pick!”_ _the headmistress had ruthlessly exclaimed._

_At the time, the noble duke, Lord Arundel, was making his monthly visit. He often came on fencing business, pawning off items or selling for the headmistress any fakes she happened to scrounge up from the many scam-artists coming to and fro in Enbarr. Dorothea recalled how strange it was to see such splendor grace their dingy and impoverished orphanage through the years of her itinerant stay. She had practically learned the tools of the trade - crocodile tears, seamless pick-pocketing, and idolatrous flattery - from the man himself. Strange and mysterious as he was, he had his uses - very lucrative uses. So the headmistress paid him no mind when Lord Arundel proceeded to the line of girls laboring through hours of needlework, eyeing them with a scrutiny that foreboded to Dorothea of high risks and - to her simmering glee - even higher returns._

_“I need a mouse,” he announced to the girls eyeing them as they averted their gazes and focused with greater concentration on their needlework. He paced along the working line, letting his boots thud heavily with inauspicious fanfare. Yet he didn’t seem to need to look for very long, for the gracious duke stopped short of Dorothea, who sat in demure fashion - hands not at all moving with much-needed labor. “A simple mouse,” he said, cocking his head to the side as he observed her, seemingly entranced by the shine of her chestnut hair, the smooth outlines of her cheek, and the piercing glow of her green eyes - a beauty too resplendent for the toils of poverty._

_“Whatever do you need a mouse for, milord?” interrupted the Headmistress as she sidled up to his side. “Surely mice are dime-a-dozen in a city like Enbarr.”_

_“Where I’m going,” he continued, leering at the headmistress with a knowing gleam in his eye, “the mouse will have to forget she’s from Enbarr.” He paused to look once more at Dorothea, who did not at shy away from his scrutiny. “She’ll have to be harmless, naive, something of a gossip, and…” Arundel eyed the unfinished latticework sitting idly on Dorothea’s lap. He picked it up with a curl of his gloved fingers, lifting it to the sunlight so he could admire the rather unremarkable craftsmanship. “…She’ll have to be convincing about it too.”_

_There was a dramatic pause, where neither Lord Arundel nor the headmistress dared to break the silence of Dorothea’s intense focus on the embroidery. She looked up after a while, dauntless in her tightlipped expression._

_“Is that all I have to do?”_

The memory faded with the waning moonlight. Outside, clouds fogged over the skies, waxing with shadow through the lightless night. Dorothea could feel her eyes flutter with the heavy weight of sleep. Laying flat on her back, she contemplated the cob-web strewn ceilings hanging low over her bed. She found it difficult parsing out the details - what with the encroaching shadow of the late evening. Nevertheless, there was an undeniable comfort to the new and unfamiliar crooks and crannies of her bedroom. By the time her eyes closed, thoughts hazy with the lethargy of her travels, she allowed herself one small admission that, in such a big and opulent estate, she had a room of her own, where she could be - unadorned - Dorothea.

* * *

A piercing shriek shook the very corners of Dorothea’s small bedroom. It came from outside the door, hollow with terror. Dorothea sat up from her bed, lost in hazy bewilderment as the continued screams drowned out whatever dream muddied her consciousness.

Dorothea rubbed her eyes from exhaustion before shaking herself awake. There was no time for yawns or slow morning-time rituals. The room was still dark with night, but it quickly dawned on her that _she_ was the new handmaiden. Whoever was screaming, it was her duty to check. Within seconds, she hopped off of bed and slipped on her night gown. She fumbled through the dark, stumbling across her room until she practically flew out into the hall.

“Mother, no!” came a woman’s muffled screams. “MOTHER!”

The desperate cries echoed through the corridor. Dorothea chased it to its source, down the corner to the room very much next to hers. She pushed through the large double doors and flung herself into a vast and lightless space, where linen and precious silk draped over large windows, towering like massive walls. The silhouette of a restless figure flailed through a maelstrom of bedding, lost in the middle of a large, four-post bed.

Panicked, Dorothea tore off the silk canopy and rushed to a small and ailing woman. Her eyes were pinched shut, and her skin was of a deathly pallor, beading with cold sweat.

“Milady!” she called out, recognizing the outlines of her oval face and telltale strands of silver hair webbing along the crown of her head. “What is it?! What’s wrong?!” Dorothea grabbed her by the shoulders, jolting her awake so as to pull her from the frenzied nightmare.

Edelgard trembled violently from where she lay, her head shaking to and fro as she struggled to open her eyes. Her breathing was hitched and desperate, gasping for air until she finally managed to stare back in her bleary-eyed consciousness. “Ladislava?!” she murmured as she struggled to sit up from her bed. “Ladislava?! Is that you?!”

Dorothea gently wiped her sweat away with the back of her palm, cooing the troubled mistress with soft whispers that belied her years of experience helping raise younger children in the orphanage. “I’m afraid not,” she murmured with a smile. “Ladislava was let go. My name is Dorothea - your new handmaiden.”

Edelgard stared at her blankly, her large lavender eyes dimming with the drifting calm of her breaths. “Dorothea?” she repeated her name, letting the sound of it finesse through the wave of confusion.

“Yes,” she answered as she straightened the crumpled up sheets. “You were having a bad dream, and I woke you.”

Moments passed as their eyes locked on through the stuttering rhythm of Edelgard’s panicked breathing. Yet it didn’t take long for the nightly terrors to fade with the seconds, calming until the young lady could recline back onto her bed. She fixed her gaze in muted scrutiny over the new servant that hovered over her.

“I heard mother,” she said after swallowing back a night of air. “I heard mother call out to me-“

“ _Ssshhh_ ,” Dorothea hushed her as she brushed back the wayward strands of silver hair, “it’s alright. It was just a dream.”

She coaxed away the remnants of hysteria that plagued her new mistress. Lord Arundel had told her Lady Edelgard was an orphan - a wealthy heiress bereft of her parents due to some tragic accident. As far as she knew, all talk of ghostly mothers were simply a fit of her hysterics - nothing more. Now it was _her_ duty to smooth any such creases from Lady Edelgard’s life.

“Close your eyes,” she murmured gently, “and _sleep_.”

She punctuated her soothing words with the hum of a burgeoning tune.

 _“You have such a pretty voice,”_ she recalled the headmistress telling her many years before. Dorothea used to sing for the headmistress when she was little, whiling away the troubles of an addled matron of her years.

Now, she put her talents to good use and sang the bits and pieces of an old lullaby, weaving half-remembered words into the rise and fall of the melody.

At first, Edelgard stared blankly at Dorothea, confused by the rather maternal gesture of having her new servant _sing_ her a lullaby. Yet upon hearing the gentle vibrato of the other’s voice, she couldn’t help but let her eyes close with the lilting tones of the siren song.

“That song…”Edelgard’s eyes started to flutter with heavy sleep. “I recognize that song…”

“ _Ssshh_ ,” Dorothea hushed once more before resuming the tune of her lullaby. “Go to sleep, milady.”

The handmaiden shifted from where she sat on the edge of the bed, inching closer so she could half-lay next to Edelgard in the midst of her song. The hand that had been brushing softly through Edelgard’s hair now moved to her shoulder, patting gently as a mother would to a troubled child.

_“In time’s flow_

_See the glow_

_of flames burning ever bright…”_

Of course Edelgard recognized the song. It was a famous one: an aria that had graced many-an-opera throughout Enbarr. Not that Dorothea would know. After all, she never could scrounge up enough pennies for a seat in the theater. Nevertheless, it was a song that Dorothea cherished, for it was the lullaby that soothed away _her_ own nightmares; a song that transported her from dingy streets and sordid realities.

“You… you have a beautiful voice,” Edelgard murmured sleepily.

Before long, the rise and fall of her chest slowed to the telltale pace of slumber. Dorothea took this as a good sign, letting out a sigh in between breaths before leaning in and muting the pitch of her voice.

“ _On the swift… river’s drift… broken memories alight_ ,” she continued singing. Her eyes too lulled with a close, lost in the haze of her own now-remembered fatigue. In the fading light of her consciousness, Dorothea could recall the soft feel of Edelgard’s nightgown - sheer muslin wrapped around her shoulder. She continued patting gently in that childlike embrace, finding something comforting in its reliable rhythm.

“Go to sleep, milady,” she whispered being falling gently into the dark world of much-needed sleep.

* * *

_There was a thud once the oilcloth sack hit the table. Despite the cavalier manner with which Arundel threw the sack, its contents neither budged nor bounced. It merely stood there, dead with heavy weight._

_“That gold is but a tiny fraction of what you will see, Dorothea,” he said aloud as he paced in the room._

_Dorothea sat quietly before the kitchen table, careful to keep her hands occupied with the train of her dress. She didn’t want to appear_ too _desperate, after all._

_“Dresses, jewelry, gold…-” Arundel paused, finally taking the seat across from the young woman with a mischievous gleam in his eye. He took a few more moments to shift in his seat, crossing his legs until he could be more comfortable in the otherwise dingy and dilapidated orphanage. “Lie to her, coax her, and tell her all about my charms,” he paused to laugh at the word. “Play the simple country maid, and all will be yours.”_

_“And what about_ you _?” she snapped back, biting down on her lip as she looked away from the sack of gold. “What do_ you _get out of this?”_

_To that, Arundel blinked back in surprise. He craned his neck back as his shoulders shook from the tremor of stifled laughter. “How amusing,” he muttered to himself. “Convince Lady Edelgard to marry me, and I get her fortune. Simple as that.”_

_“And how much is that?” Dorothea leaned back skeptically, crossing her arms against her chest with a furl of her brow._

_For a moment, Arundel closed his eyes, giving off a bemused sigh at Dorothea’s rather childish question._

_“Lady Edelgard’s_ true _fortune,” he answered with a wan smile, “can’t be measured in gold.”_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay. I had to prioritize my dissertation, which was difficult and akin to pulling one's teeth lmao. Anyway here we are. I *do* follow the source film closely, so I apologize if this is too derivative. I am trying to make small, subtle changes that fit the game's lore and canon story. Thank you to those who waited patiently and who now read this!

Great Tree Moon often brought monsoons raging with southern winds. Despite weathering its many showers in Enbarr, Dorothea never quite expected how much _damper_ things could get out in the country, especially in such… a _verdant_ estate.

“This is Dorothea,” Cornelia announced as she stepped aside. Her voice was almost drowned out by the thunderous rain, their pitter-patter clacking against the parlor window with great ferocity.

Dorothea, meanwhile, bowed her head obsequiously. She did a quick curtsy - careful to fold her hands over the train of her dress - and pressed her feet together. Moments before, she had drenched them on her way to the main wing after accomplishing some of her morning chores. Now, she couldn’t help but wince at the _wet_ noise of her muddied leather boots (her only pair) sticking together. She blushed through her embarrassment and forced out a cough.

“I am at your service, Lady-” she spoke out (as rehearsed) through her low bow, but the moment her green eyes reached up to the object in question, her voice withered away with a soft gasp of surprise. Dorothea’s mouth hung open with words that she struggled to suppress. ‘ _He never told me-…”_ her thoughts wandered.

At first she saw the white muslin of her dress, sheer and delicate as they trained over her legs. Then there were her hands, frail and shaking as they were clenched through knitted fingers over her lap; and her hair - it was imbued with a warm silvery glow. The bulk of it was kept in tightly braided buns close to her temples, but not even their neatness could hold back the untamed locks which cascaded like silvery tresses down the frame of her neck, which was wrapped in intricately woven lace. 

‘ _-that she was so pretty…’_

Lady Edelgard stared through her new servant’s rather… _attentive_ gaze. For a moment, she seemed to flinch and turn, but the lady merely shifted in her seat and flattened the creases of her dress before resuming her austere demeanor. She could only nod her head in response.

“Cornelia,” she suddenly spoke, turning slightly to the housekeeper. “I didn’t realize Ladislava needed to be let go.”

Dorothea noticed that there was a forced monotone to Edelgard’s voice, practiced in its efforts to erase all emotion. The Lady nevertheless betrayed a slight curl with the corner of her lips, furling her brows with barely concealed irritation. It appeared - by her rather irked demeanor - that she had no recollection of her restlessness the night before or that Dorothea had crept into her moonlit rescue, coaxing away nightmares with the hum of a faintly remembered lullaby. 

“Ah, Ladislava was unfortunately caught stealing, Lady Edelgard,” Cornelia answered through gritted teeth.

“Hm…” Edelgard thoughtfully cocked her head to the side. “I never knew Ladislava was capable of such things.”

“When it comes to servants, my lady,” the older woman hastily cut in, “one can never know.”

There was disdain in her voice, one that Dorothea felt was directed at her. Nevertheless, Cornelia smiled, albeit forcefully, and gave a curtsey without giving her mistress room to parry. A slight and fleeting second-long impasse seemed to weigh over them, before Cornelia bowed her head once more and sauntered away to leave the room. It had seemed, Dorothea thought, that she forgot to brief the new servant on _what_ exactly she was to do.

Meanwhile, the two other women remained anchored to their posts, awkwardly breathing through the tense silence of their surroundings.

“So…” Edelgard started after clearing her throat. She re-crossed her legs and fiddled with the ruffles of her skirt. “Dorothea.”

“Yes, Lady Edelgard.” Dorothea gave an even lower bow than before.

“Do you come to us by recommendation?”

Dorothea expected the question. In fact she expected it much sooner, but she was nothing if not prepared. She fussed through the pockets of her apron, rummaging for the crumpled envelope Arundel had meticulously forged (along with a contrived backstory) prior to her newly acquired employment.

“Here you are, milady,” she said, offering up the aforementioned letter with both hands. With her head still bowed low in deference, she could only hear the sharp crackle of parchment as her mistress snatched the letter from her hand.

“You came by my _aunt’s_ recommendation?” Edelgard asked aloud, her eyes darting to and fro the letter in her hands and the obsequious servant before her. There was an unreadable gleam in her eyes - one that sent a rush of panic in Dorothea’s now trembling voice, as she quickly scanned the page.

“Y-yes,” she hastily replied, “I was her chambermaid in the Kingdom.”

“Interesting,” Edelgard candidly observed. “You know I have no aunts?”

Dorothea bowed again, knowing that the nobility hated confrontational corrections. “Lady Freida is the sister-in-law of your mother’s current husband, milady. She thinks of you, fondly, as her niece.”

“Hm, I see.” The gleam of skepticism did not at all vanish from her eyes as she glanced back at the letter in hand. “My mother talks of me in the Kingdom? In front of her new husband, the King?”

“Oh yes,” she happily piped up, “very much so!”

Suddenly, Edelgard let out a sigh. She threw the parchment on the sécretaire before her, reclining back on her chaise. “I have a headache. Please, read it aloud for me.” She punctuated the request with a groan, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose.

Dorothea, meanwhile, stared back dumbly. “You-… you want me to read?”

“The prime minister works me day and night,” Edelgard explained rather vaguely. “I’m simply too fatigued to read.”

Her handmaiden, however, merely cocked her brow from such an unconvincing excuse. Indeed, the rather massive estate was famously owned by the powerful Duke Aegir - a portly man who purportedly ran the show while the enfeebled emperor withered away in his twilight years. Or so the story goes, as Lord Arundel told Dorothea. Still, it was not the servant’s place to question a noblewoman’s word. So she stepped forward and took the letter back.

Dorothea held it high in the air, making sure to let what little sunlight poured from the window brighten the yellow pages. Outlines of the cursive handwriting came into view. They were pretty curves, to be sure, but the squiggles and dramatic accents of the calligraphy were a far cry from the bold and tidy print of the playbills she would snatch from the front steps of the opera house. And even _then_ , she could barely read the letters apart from the practiced names of the actors, singers, and characters whom she so longingly admired.

So when she barely made out the pretty “Dear…” with which the letter began, Dorothea knew she was well out of luck. Reading wasn’t a strong suit, if at all a skill she could claim. After clearing her throat and hemming through her breaths (as if she was warming up), the illiterate handmaiden chose instead to recall. She _did_ have a peculiar talent for memory. In fact, she was praised in the orphanage for memorizing arias and songs - with their many notes - from every opera staged by the Mittelfrank company for the past ten years. Lord Arundel was rather fond about this talent of hers. He even made sure to recite the letter as he wrote it, proud as he was of his flowery diction and the sound of his own voice.

“Dear Lady Edelgard,” she started again with more confidence.

“I, your humble servant and aunt, the Marquess Frieda, beg your understanding and forgiveness for my regrettable absence. In my place, I send this letter and - as I hope you will find - a very capable handmaiden.”

Dorothea paused to gulp back her nerves. She cleared her throat, took a quick and furtive glance at Edelgard (who sat expressionless as she listened) and straightened her posture to continue.

“Good handmaidens are like a good corset.” (Edelgard bit back a chuckle at the clumsy analogy, but she immediately fanned a modest hand over her mouth to hide it.) “No one sees them, but they support you and make you more beautiful for the world to see.”

“Alright, that’s enough,” Edelgard cut in, waving her hand at Dorothea while shaking her head in soundless laughter. “I thank you for the time, but I suppose I should write to my … _doting_ aunt in thanks for her-…” She paused to glance back at Dorothea, eyeing curiously the tall woman from head to toe. “… Her trusted recommendation.”

Dorothea bowed again, thankful she didn’t have to recite more of the letter from memory.

“But first,” the lady continued as she rose from the chaise, “help me change. The Prime Minister expects me.”

“Yes, milady!”

The two proceeded to the other side of the room, where a tapestry of robes hung over a tall, translucent folding screen next to a bath.

“I should inform you,” Dorothea suddenly said when she pulled on one of the dresser cabinets, “Lady Cornelia asked me to come get you before supper. Duke Aegir will be having Lord Arundel as his guest.”

Edelgard said nothing as she disrobed from her morning dress, tugging at the snug silken sleeves as they unrolled from her lithe limbs. “Help me with this,” she mumbled in instruction. The handmaiden tacitly obeyed, untying and loosening the waistcoat until her mistress was left in nothing but a satin tunic overlaid by a whalebone corset. “Get me the red gown. Lord Arundel likes that.”

“You’ve met Lord Arundel?”

“Yes, once last summer. He’s my uncle.”

Dorothea nearly dropped the clothes on the floor. “Your uncle?!”

“Why, yes,” she turned back to the brunette with her shoulders left bare. “Is that strange? I didn’t realize you knew my uncle.”

Undressing loosened a bramble of silver hair from her bun down to the nape of her neck, trailing deftly over the grooves of her back as they reached down the base of her spine. Dorothea did her best to swallow the stifling wad of air in her throat. She concentrated on the handiwork of pulling the scarlet overcoat down through Edelgard’s outstretched hands until the unperturbed smoothness of her pink skin vanished beneath layers of new clothing.

“I met him once,” Dorothea lied, not without a near imperceptible tremor in her voice, “during a tea party at your mother’s.” Something in Edelgard’s pregnant silence left a shudder in Dorothea’s spine. She knew her flimsy lie was damning, to be sure, so she did her best to tack on more to the story in case the lack of detail proved unconvincing. “And in the brief time I met him, I never would have taken you two for family. You look nothing alike!”

Edelgard was facing away, watching their shared reflection on her vanity mirror as Dorothea laced together her clothes.

“You’ve met my mother then?” she asked, not at all hiding the sudden vibrancy of her tone.

“Yes, of course,” Dorothea answered simply, feeling a clamping tightness in her jaw.

“What is she like?” The young Lady craned her neck, glancing coyly with her lilac eyes as the curl in her mouth betrayed a faint smile.

 _‘Your mother was beautiful,’_ Dorothea recalled the headmistress’s words when she was a child. _‘Beautiful beyond words. She wouldn’t let you go when you were born…’_

“She was beautiful,” Dorothea unwittingly echoed as her eyes turned to Edelgard’s reflection on the mirror, “beautiful beyond words.”

Their eyes met in the reflection: emerald and lavender locked in an impasse as they shared in a moment of fleeting breathlessness. It was Edelgard who averred first, smiling as she sighed out in flustered giddiness. “Everyone says that about my mother, and yet I know nothing of her.”

“You’ve never met her?” Dorothea paused from her work to study the intricate embroidery of the overcoat. Golden trimmings curved all over the ruched pattern, rendering Edelgard’s waist lavishly ornate.

“I haven’t seen her in years - at least, not since I was a child.”

“Oh…”

An awkwardness punctuated their conversation just as the storm outside calmed to the milder hush of dewy rain. The implied tragedy of a separation wasn’t something Dorothea was quite ready to probe, so she opted instead to give all of her concentration to the task at hand. After all, the dress Edelgard was to wear for supper was nothing short of decadent - the likes of which Dorothea had never seen before. It could have easily paid for all the children’s room and board at the orphanage for a year, if not more. Every button she buttoned and every lace she laced fueled in her mind the jaded calculation of wealth and poverty. How many silk stockings could Dorothea afford if she pawned this dress? How many peach sorbets? How many opera tickets? The fantasy was dizzying.

But there was something impenetrably sad about all the fanfare and vainglory stitched into every inch of her clothing - something appallingly horrid and stifling.

“ _You’ve_ seen her.” Edelgard seemed fixated on the subject. More than that, she appeared more than eager to keep the conversation alive. “Tell me, do I look anything like her?”

She shifted away from Dorothea, catching her in surprise as she angled her head every which way for her handmaiden's scrutiny. “People say I look nothing like her,” Edelgard said with a smile.

“Well, they’re not lying,” she quipped, a little too casually. The burst of candor was rather unexpected, for her mistress could only stare mutely in her astonishment. Inwardly, Dorothea bit back harsh self-reproach. She didn't even know why such words escaped her lips, when she never once met the Queen Consort Patricia in her life. “I- I only mean,” Dorothea returned with a blush, “Lady Edelgard has her merits too. Perhaps she was never meant to become her mother, but to surpass her.” She blushed through her rather clumsy "save," hoping against the thrashing of her pulse that it had worked.

The compliment was acceptable, or so it appeared. Edelgard merely cleared her throat as a gesture and turned her attention back to the matter at hand: her reflection.

With the last bit of her ministrations, Dorothea pulled tightly on the corset so it became snug once more, prompting her mistress to jump with a sharp gasp at the otherwise typical portion of her routine.

Edelgard spun around, eyeing her reflection in the mirror from all angles to inspect it closely. “Well? Do I look presentable at least?”

The question snapped Dorothea out of her trance. She watched the train of Edelgard’s skirt flail in the air, spinning with her playful rotations before the mirror. With a smile, she admired the way her new mistress seemed to relish in otherwise superficial pleasures - the sight of her hair bouncing with fervid motion, or the sheen of her dress as it caught a sliver of grayed sunlight. Most of all, she felt the heady thrill at watching Edelgard beam, turning pleasantly to watch as her hair draped over the length of her neck. Such frivolous vanity was unexpected from someone of Edelgard’s otherwise rather serious demeanor, but such girlish impulses in a woman like her nevertheless had its own charm.

“Mesmerizing,” Dorothea breathed out, “absolutely breathtaking…”

* * *

Working for Lady Edelgard von Hresvelg certainly had its ups and downs. On her first day, Dorothea discovered them all.

The Lady began her day usually late into the morning, almost at the cusp of noon when afternoon tea was served. The estate - for all its vastness and dizzying heights - was rather barren save the hustle and bustle of the staff needed for its seamless and unceasing maintenance. At times, Housekeeper Cornelia was never to be found, and in others, she appears spectrally like a shadow taunting negligent or immoral servants shirking their duty.

From the hours between noon and supper, Dorothea found herself waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting… either in Lady Edelgard’s room, or in the labyrinth corridors of her wing. It was in these hours that the young Lady did her “readings,” or so Duke Aegir called them. Dorothea was never quite aware what they were, but a simple peasant like _her_ could only guess. Perhaps it pertained _only_ to the “lucky few,” as she called them. The Lady Hresvelg was royalty, after all, and so far very close to becoming the sole heir to the throne. There may yet be mysteries to her routine reserved for the delicate arts of governing the state. 

“Did you hear?” one of the maids rushed down the hall to catch Dorothea. She had just been on her way to the library, where the supposed “readings” took place, to fetch her mistress.

“Hear what?” Dorothea asked back, somewhat irked that a simpleton was distracting her.

“Lord Arundel has arrived! Early!”

Dorothea’s green eyes flashed.

_“You’ve met Lord Arundel?”_

_“Yes, once last summer. He’s my uncle.”_

“Dorothea!” the maid cut through her recollection of this morning’s events. “You look pale!’

Indeed, a ghastly pallor overtook her otherwise rosy complexion. For one, his early arrival had upset the tenuous balance of the schedule that she herself had barely begun navigating. Dorothea had hoped to spend more time with Lady Edelgard - to eke out more information and prime her for one of the sporadically scheduled “trysts” that Lord Arundel had planned. Yet there was a new, proverbial chink in their schemes, especially now that she had discovered a rather unsavory fact: Lord Arundel was her mistress’s family. He was her _uncle_.

Dorothea suppressed an inward groan, instead forcing a smile as she answered the forgettable housemaid.

“Not at all,” she feigned with a laugh. “Why won't you be a dear and alert Housekeeper Cornelia? I’ll fetch Lady Hresvelg and prepare her for the visit.”

The maid nodded resolutely, somewhat transported into newfound sense of her duty now that the help had dictated orders with the natural-born finesse of a noble lady. “Sure thing, Dorothea!” she piped complacently, before running down the corridor with great alacrity.

With distraction out of sight (and gratefully out of mind), Dorothea quickened her pace and skipped down the hall to the main stairwell. The entrance to the room itself was unassuming. Perched on the uppermost floor of the wing, the library occupied the entire level and barred passage to anyone who dared face the serpent-carved brass knobs that stood in their proverbial guard. Dorothea faced the oak-paneled double-doors with little regard for the rather ominous architecture (a style of which she little cared for unless it served as a prop for the villain’s setting in an opera). By the time she clicked the door open with a creak, she barely had time to catch her breath.

Fire - a flash of golden flame blinded her sight before it vanished in a rain of ashes.

“Who dares enter?!"

Dorothea’s green eyes darted from sight to sight: bleary figures, dark-caped silhouettes, and a solitary figure of red, kneeling before a corpulent man with a balding crown of orange hair.

“I-… I’m sorry! I-…”

“Be gone!” shouted someone else. Their eyes shone in the dark with the ominous golden gleam of a predator lying in wait.

Dorothea first felt the jolt of her spine when she backed into the closed door. Her trembling hands desperately searched for the brass knobs that would be her escape.

“Forgive her, my lord,” Edelgard cried out from where she knelt in the middle of the room. Dorothea spotted her silver hair bowed low in supplication. “I’ll take care of her.”

The rest was a blur. Dorothea could only recall the dizzying flash of images and movement as she was seized by the ceaseless trembling of her lips. Faces surrounded her - white and ghastly and the sockets of their eyes blacker than the night. She could barely hear herself beg them to have mercy - to let her go as they encroached with glaring eyes.

Dorothea was lost in a haze of terror and bewilderment. She hadn’t even noticed when Edelgard grabbed her by the hand and whisked her away. It was not until the unsuspecting handmaiden plopped to the floor with the full force of her mistress’s swing did she regain a sense that was ejected from the library and gasping desperately for air.

“I will call on you when I am finished,” Edelgard spoke under her breath, yet her face was blank - devoid of the anger or the concern that Dorothea would have expected.

She did not waste a single second to return to her task - whatever it was. Perhaps it was Dorothea’s imagination, but she could have sworn one of Edelgard’s epaulettes was torn off, slinking down her bare shoulder as it exposed skin covered in ash. Even part of her waistcoat was untied, the lacings of it trailing along the skirt of her dress to reveal glimpses of pink-bitten scars that gleamed a fresh ruby red along the lower ridges of her spine.

“Lady Edelgard? Lady Edelgard!”

The library doors slammed shut behind her, leaving Dorothea alone with her confusion.

* * *

Lord Arundel was afforded one of the better guest rooms - a decently-sized chamber left barren save for a lavishly decorated with a four-post bed, a letter desk, and a rather envious view of the estate’s sprawling gardens. It was a surprisingly calm and placating scene, or so Dorothea thought. When she closed the door behind her, she was still reeling from the shock of having visited (albeit briefly) the library. Faint images of scars and faces still dogged the thoughtless whir of her mind. Even now, in a room located in the other side of the wing, she could still smell the stench of smoke and ash that followed the flash of fire she had seen.

“Enjoying your stay?” Arundel began. He stood by the window, facing the view with keen, searching eyes.

With a sigh, Dorothea balked at his rudeness. “One can hardly call my time here as the maid a ‘stay’,” she quipped. Rolling her eyes, she sauntered to the bed and plopped on the mattress, relishing in the bounce of its springs. “This place is _mad_ ,” Dorothea muttered as her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Absolutely mad! I want out.”

Arundel turned with a concerned furl of his brow. “I beg your pardon?”

“There are _plenty_ of things you failed to disclose.” She held herself up by her elbows and eyed him with a questioning look. “First, you didn’t tell me you were trying to seduce your _niece_.”

To that, the nobleman could only scoff, somewhat bemused by her show of disdain. “Such matters should not concern you.”

“Second,” she continued, unwilling to brook any interruption, “did you know they have an evil, magical torture chamber in the highest floor? Well, I didn’t. I’m sure you’ll find it a _delightful_ surprise…”

“Little Dorothea,” Lord Arundel said her name in feigned placating tones. He walked towards the bed, stopping short the bedside table to begin pouring (presumably for himself) a glass of wine. “The nobility are not without their secrets, and it is not for someone like you to find them.” He paused to offer up the glass to the lackadaisical maid. There was something ominous in his calm, as if the lack of shock hinted at even darker secrets to come.

Dorothea eyed the offer with suspicion, but she nevertheless grabbed the chalice with a forceful huff of her breath, putting the drink to her lips in order to calm her nerves. Still, she was caught in the distraction of the subtlety of his words. _"Someone like you_ ," he had said. Peasant or not, the meaning of it did not at all escape her. 

“You must simply concern yourself with your task - a task only _you_ can accomplish,” he went on with a wry smile.

Dorothea nodded, but not without letting her eyes off of him. She watched with as much caution as an animal stuck in a corner, taking the offering of the wine with barely suppressed disgust.

“The time is half past three,” he said out of the blue. Dorothea scanned the room, failing to find a watch. “Soon you must collect Lady Edelgard for supper. I am sure she will need your assistance for our meeting.”Arundel reached into his coat pocket, bringing out an ornately carved box. “Tell her I have a present from her mother - one I made special effort to _personally_ deliver.”

Dorothea eyed the present before snatching it with callous indifference. She slipped the trinket into her coat pocket before offering up her reassurances. “I will be sure to relay the message,” she said, though not without an inward groan. “Do you _really_ think she’d marry _you,_ her uncle?”

If Arundel had been amused by the swings of her behavior, he was careful to temper it. Despite his otherwise calm mask of indifference, Dorothea’s biting inquiries elicited from him a low chuckle. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Indeed,” she replied pithily, realizing that he was not about to divulge more to her. Dorothea turned without so much as another glance before promptly exiting the room. By the time the door closed behind her, she wondered - not without a sinking feeling in her heart - whether the promise of gold truly outweighed what it could potentially cost. As she stalked the corridors, aimlessly waiting out the time until she had to fetch her mistress, her thoughts inevitably wandered to Edelgard - the placid expression she had worn during her dressing, the soft vibrancy of her voice as she asked about her mother, and the blank listlessness in her eyes as she threw Dorothea from the library. It was perplexing, to say the least. The beautiful, mysterious Lady Edelgard: what other secrets did _she_ have in store?

What was it all for? Why was she even there? The gold? The dresses? What were such glimmering trinkets in the face of a dark and bitter secret spreading like a stench through the otherwise glamorous estate? Dorothea chewed on her lower lip, wondering if she could even trick the imperious Lady Edelgard into a match foolishly proposed by her own uncle.

The sight of Edelgard's fresh pink wounds as she returned to the library moments before flashed before Dorothea's mind. It was a far cry from the smooth image of her back that she had glimpsed earlier in the morning - milky and unscathed, she wondered what other scars her new mistress hid.


End file.
